One of the reasons we fail to regularly read God’s Word is that we don’t plan to. We get up day after day, and we haven’t decided where to read. Pressing duties soon sidetrack us, and another day passes without significant time with an open Bible. If we want renewal in our devotional lives badly enough, we will make sufficient plans.

Gwen Shaw had been a missionary in China for fourteen years, but there was a lack of God’s anointing on her ministry. One day God sent a man to minister at her church.

When discussing Ephesians 3:16, 17 (the verses below), Dr. Roger Hahn illustrated what it means for God to dwell in our hearts using the following incident. When he and his wife Dorothy pastored in Florida, Dorothy told some overnight guests, “Make yourselves at home.”

Ruth and a college classmate did not get along. “Others did not know of our dislike for each other,” Ruth said, “but we both knew it. This went on for two years. I thought, I haven’t done anything; this is her fault so I don’t need to apologize.

One of the lessons the Old Testament stories teach us is that we can be certain God will answer our prayer even before we see the answer.

Marie Monsen was a Spirit-filled Norwegian missionary to China in the early 1900’s. After spending some time with other missionaries, she planned to leave on Saturday to keep another appointment. But “higher orders” came for her to wait until Monday. When the missionary in charge heard this, he immediately responded that it was impossible as there were no trains on Mondays. She wondered if she had made a mistake, so she waited quietly before the Lord, but again she heard the same words: “Leave on Monday.”

Lynn’s mother led her into prostitution when she was only 15 years old. She hated her job and used heroine to hide her pain. Major Joy Emmons tells in the Sept. 15, 2012 issue of The War Cry that she invited Lynn to go to a Salvation Army retreat with her, and Lynn agreed to go.

In his book How to Pray, R. A. Torrey wrote of our need to come into God’s presence before we pray: “There must be a definite and conscious approach to God when we pray; we must have a definite and vivid realization that God is bending over us and listening as we pray. In much of our prayer there is really little thought of God. Our mind is taken up with the thought of what we need and not with the loving Father of whom we are seeking it. We should look to the Holy Spirit to lead us into the presence of God, and should not be hasty in words until He has brought us there.”